


please say sike

by Zelan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:00:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29797806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelan/pseuds/Zelan
Summary: tumblr user marymotherof: "when alastair was like “get off the rack or keep getting tortured 😈” dean should’ve said yes every time and then once he was unstrapped been like nahhh, I changed my mind. what’s alastair gonna do be mad? torture him again?"this is that.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	please say sike

**Author's Note:**

> man if you woulda told me before november 2020 that supernatural would be the thing to get me out of my year-long break from fic writing i would've laughed in your face. and yet im the clown now lmao

“Just get off the rack and all of this will be over.” Alastair’s breath on his neck makes Dean shudder, but every molecule in his body lights up in agony when he tries to pull away, so he stays put, skin crawling, head hung. “Take your pain and make it theirs instead.”

“...fine.”

Alastair stills for a moment, surprised, before a cruel smile splits his face. “Giving in already, Dean? I expected more of a fight from you. No matter. We’ll make an expert torturer of you in no time. You already know your way around a body, after all.”

Dean doesn’t answer, and Alastair departs, leaving him while his skin knits itself back together and his organs regenerate.

When Alastair returns, it’s to release him from the rack. Dean stumbles a bit when his feet touch the ground for the first time in… a long time, but there’s no time to gain his bearings as he’s ushered through Hell’s shifting landscape and towards his first victim.

The figure on the rack whimpers quietly when they arrive. Alastair gestures grandly towards an impressive array of torture instruments. “Take your pick. Whichever one strikes your fancy. Eventually I’ll teach you how to use each one to its full potential, but for now I’d just like to get an idea of your preferences, your style. It should be fun, hm?”

Dean doesn’t say a word as he considers the options in front of him. The quiet stretches out between them, punctuated by the screams in the distance and the occasional sob from close by. Finally, Dean reaches for a small knife, almost like a scalpel. He holds it delicately, considering it, tapping it gently against his fingernail. Behind him, Alastair’s lips curl. 

And Dean sits down and begins carefully trimming his nails.

“... what are you doing?”

“I figured they could use a trim, don’t you?” Dean holds up a hand for Alastair. “Wouldn’t wanna get a hangnail, after all.”

“Is this a joke?” Alastair seethes.

“Is it funny?”

Dean’s would-be victim coughs behind him, and he turns just quick enough to meet their eyes; they flicker with amusement, with  _ life _ , and the corners of their mouth twitch in the barest hint of pleasure.

Dean grins back, genuinely, until Alastair rounds on him with a roar and turns it into a grimace. It hurts worse, so much worse, because Alastair isn’t just doing a job now, he’s angry, truly angry. But it’s worth it to know he has enough power to anger him in the first place. This time Dean chokes on his laughter alongside his blood.

\-----

“Who’s your friend, Cas?”

The unfamiliar angel smiles tightly, like he’s got any number of better things to do then sit in a diner talking to Sam and Dean. (Which, he’s an angel. He probably does.) “My name is Zachariah. I’ve got some questions for you, Dean.”

Dean and Sam exchange a look across the table. Sam offers a slight shrug. Dean then glances over at Cas, who stares back at him, expression betraying nothing. Figures.

“Can they at least wait until after we’re done eating?” Dean tries.

“No.”

“Fine. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know why the seals of the apocalypse remain unbroken.”

Silence.

“The apocalypse. Like… the biblical apocalypse?” Sam ventures.

“Exactly. You, Dean Winchester, were the first one. And yet Samhain has come and gone with nary an attempt to break the seal.”

“Wait, wait, back it up a second.” Dean shakes his head. “What do you mean, first seal?”

“The fall of the righteous man was the first seal,” Zachariah intones, as if reading scripture. “That’s you, Dean. When you chose to end your suffering in hell, you set into motion the events leading up to the apocalypse.”

“... huh,” Dean says.

Across from him, Sam is tense, looking cautiously back and forth between Dean and Zachariah and looking like he wishes the angel wasn’t boxing him into the booth. Sam’s been desperate to hear about what happened while Dean was in hell, but he wanted to hear it straight from him, Dean realizes. Not like this.

“And yet,” Zachariah goes on, visibly irritated now, “the seals remain unbroken. We seem to be no closer to the apocalypse than before you fell. Do you have any idea why that is?”

“Well, um. Does it still count if I didn’t actually torture anyone?”

“ _ What? _ ” Zachariah is obviously thrown. “Our intel told us that the righteous man was off the rack.”

“What’s the rack?” Sam cuts in, no longer able to hold back his curiosity.

For a moment Dean hesitates, but it’s all coming out into the open anyway. Sam might as well hear it from him. “While I was down there, after a while of being tortured they’d offer to stop provided that you picked up torturing yourself.”

“And you accepted?” Sam’s expression is unreadable.

“Couple times, yeah. As a joke.”

Cas squints at him. “In what way is torturing the damned a joke?”

“It isn’t, Cas. That’s why I didn’t do it.” Confused silence hangs in the air for a moment. Dean sighs. “You know. I’d say I accept their offer, they’d leave me alone for a little while, bring me in to meet my victim, and then, you know. Just say sike.”

An incredulous smile makes its way across Sam’s face. “Just say sike? To the demons?”

“Yeah, sure. Not like there was any other way to have any fun in Hell. I mean, what were they gonna do? Send me to time out to think about the consequences of my actions?” Sam hides a smile by sipping from his mug. “Only did it a couple times, ‘cause it got them pretty pissed off. And it has to be believable, you know. After the first time it was harder to get them to take me for my word when I said I would do it. Managed to pull it four times, though.”

“I think that explains it, then,” Cas says, facing Zachariah. “The righteous man never truly fell. The first seal remains unbroken.”

Dean thinks this should be good news, but Zachariah’s carefully neutral expression indicates otherwise. After a long pause, the angel nods. “Yes. Well. Glad to have that sorted then.” Dean blinks and he’s vanished.

“... huh,” Sam says.

Cas turns to face Dean. “Forty years in hell and you never once considered taking their offer,” he muses, almost to himself. “Truly righteous.”

Sam doesn’t miss the way the smile forces itself onto Dean’s face. “That’s me,” Dean says, pointedly light.

Cas nods thoughtfully and then he’s gone too.

Dean pushes his now-cold sausage around on his plate, not meeting Sam’s eyes. It’s clear he doesn’t really want to talk about it, but Sam knows if he doesn’t ask now, he’ll probably never get another chance.

“Forty years?” he asks. “You were only… gone for four months.”

At first he thinks Dean won’t respond, but then his shoulders sag resignedly and he puts his fork down. “Time works differently in Hell, Sammy.” Sam’s heart clenches, but he’s careful not to show it on his face; the last thing Dean wants is pity. “The first time… the first time was legit, at first. I just wanted it to end. But they left me alone for a while, you know, to get their Torture 101 lesson plans prepped or whatever, and I had time to think about it. And then… I don’t know. They gave me the tools but they couldn’t physically force me to use them, you know. Or I guess that’s what they were trying to do with the torture, anyway.”

Dean brings a hand up to his face. Sam knows his brother well enough to know he’s trying to hold back tears. Casually, he averts his eyes, giving Dean time to collect himself. The waitress starts to approach, but something in Sam’s face must clue her in, because she hesitates before quietly retreating.

Finally, Dean lowers his hand and looks up to meet Sam’s eyes. “It was enough at first, knowing I could do that. Even if they took it out on me, it was- it was my choice. I still had some power there, at least. But the last time…” Dean takes in a shaky breath. “I was gonna do it, Sammy. For real. And it- it scares me, knowing that. The things I would’ve done if the angels were just a few seconds later pulling me outta there.” Dean’s hands are clenched around his mug, the look in his eyes faraway.

“Dean.”

Sam’s voice is gentle, so gentle, and Dean wants to snap at him not to patronize but he looks at Sam’s face and it’s the puppy-dog eyes that melt him. Not the ones that Sam uses to get information out of someone, the ones he used to use when he wanted Dean to play with him or make him dinner. These are genuine, filled with admiration, and it pulls him back to that same look on Sammy’s face when Dean taught him to hustle pool or saved him from a close call on a hunt or gave him all those old books that one birthday. These are the soft, trusting eyes of a younger brother looking up to his older brother.

“Hell is designed to strip away your humanity until you don’t care anymore who you have to hurt to make it stop. The fact that you gave in… it doesn’t make you- worse than anyone, you know? And just because you would have done it there doesn’t mean you’ll do it here. They can’t make you do anything here. You have your life back now.”

Dean can’t forget the way it felt to grip the poker in his hand, the steely resolve, before Hell filled with light and he woke up in his own coffin. He probably won’t forget it - forget the shame - for a long time. But Sam’s right. And he doesn’t think differently of Dean for what he might have done.

“Thanks, Sammy.”


End file.
